Google extends Book Search
Google finally settled their (US) wrangle with book publishers, which means Google will unlock their display of book content, with reciprocal ad revenue share to publishers.
Google published an exceptionally clear explanation of how this changes the Google Book service .
Anything that enhances access to books (particularly textbooks) and out of print books without the constraint of getting a copy has got to be a good thing.
Of course, this latest development still fills me with questions about the increasing concentration of the World's information and knowledge into Google's hands...
Oh, and this only applies to the USA.
UPDATE: Techdirt has an interesting take on this decision, arguing it's not good news at all:
"Specifically, (Google) positioned itself as being willing to fight certain lawsuits on principle in order to get precedent setting rulings on the books in support of openness, fair use, safe harbors and many other important issues...
...So, it's quite upsetting to see Google cave on this. The settlement does not establish any sort of precedent on the legality of creating such an index of books, and, if anything pushes things in the other direction, saying that authors and publishers now have the right to determine what innovations there can be when it comes to archiving and indexing works of content."
The article also links to a New Yorker article taking a grander, historical view of Google's book scanning project.
(Via TechMeme.)
